Can anyone be an angel? Consumers’ critical discursive strategies in navigating femvertising - Case Victoria’s Secret

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

School of Business | Master's thesis

Authors

Date

2024

Department

Markkinoinnin laitos

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Marketing

Language

en

Pages

40+ 15

Series

Abstract

The popularity of woke culture, socially progressive and brand activism matters have increased in the 21th century, influencing brands´ marketing strategies. Companies have started to adopt feminist values, and create new progressive ways to market their products. As some customers are praising companies for being socially progressive, others have a hard time accepting the changes. The purpose of this paper is to analyse consumers' critical discursive strategies to Victoria´s Secret´s femvertising and socially progressive rebranding from August 2023 to May 2024. The promotion of body positivity and inclusion were studied by analysing 33 687 social media comments. The data indicates that Victoria´s Secret´s feminist brand activism has divided consumers into three different types of critical discursive strategies: nostalgia (remedicing about the past and preferring things to stay as they were), perceived inauthenticity (finding the marketing inauthentic, either because it does not fit the old brand image, it is believed to be caused by outside pressure or because of the unequal portrayal of plus-size models) and value conflict (conflict between the new brand values and consumers own personal values).

Description

Thesis advisor

Mikkonen, Ilona

Keywords

femvertising, brand activism, woke, woke-washing, femwashing, socially progressive marketing, body positivity

Other note

Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202409156360

Collections

[gradu] Kauppakorkeakoulu / BIZ